"My Rangatira."--The respective Duties of the Pakeha and his
Rangatira.--Public Opinion.--A "Pakeha Kino."--Description of
my Rangatira.--His Exploits and Misadventures.--His Moral
Principles.--Decline in the Number of the Natives.--Proofs of
former large Population.--Ancient Forts.--Causes of Decrease.
When I purchased my land, the payment was made on the ground, and
immediately divided and subdivided amongst the different sellers. Some
of them who, according to their own representations formerly made to
me, were the sole and only owners of the land, received for their share
about the value of one shilling, and moreover, as I also observed, did
not appear at all disappointed.
One old _rangatira_, before whom a considerable portion of the payment
had been laid as his share of the spoil, gave it a slight shove with
his foot, expressive of refusal, and said, "I will not accept any of
the payment; I will have the pakeha." I saw some of the magnates
present seemed greatly disappointed at this, for I dare say they had
expected to have the pakeha _as well_ as the payment. But the old
gentleman had regularly check-mated them by refusing to accept any
payment; and being also a person of great respectability, _i.e._, a
good fighting man, with twenty more at his back, he was allowed to have
his way: thereby, in the opinion of all the natives present, making a
far better thing of the land sale than any of them, though he had
received no part of the payment.
I consequently was therefore a part, and by no means an inconsiderable
one, of the payment for my own land; but though now part and parcel of
the property of the old _rangatira_ aforementioned, a good deal of
liberty was allowed me. The fact of my having become his pakeha made
our respective relations and duties to each other about as follows--
Firstly.--At all times, places, and companies, my owner had the right
to call me "his pakeha."
Secondly.--He had the general privilege of "pot-luck" whenever he chose
to honour my establishment with a visit: said pot-luck to be tumbled
out to him on the ground before the house; he being far too great a man
to eat out of plates or dishes, or any degenerate invention of that
nature; as, if he did, they would all become _tapu_ and of no use to
any one but himself: nor indeed to himself either, as he did not see
the use of them.
Thirdly.--It was well understood that to avoid the unpleasant
appearance of paying "black mail," and to keep up general kindly
relations, my owner should from time to time make me small presents,
and that in return I should make him presents of five or six times the
value: all this to be done as if arising from mutual love and kindness,
and not the slightest allusion to be ever made to the relative value of
the gifts on either side. (An important article.)
Fourthly.--It was to be a _sine qua non_ that I must purchase
everything the chief or his family had to sell, whether I wanted them
or not, and give the highest market price, or rather more. (Another
very important article.)
Fifthly.--The chief's own particular pipe was never to be allowed to
become extinguished for want of the needful supply of tobacco.
Sixthly.--All desirable jobs of work, and all advantages of all kinds,
to be offered first to the family of my _rangatira_, before letting any
one else have them; payment for same to be about 25 per cent. more than
to any one else, exclusive of a _douceur_ to the chief himself, because
he did not work.
In return for these duties and customs, well and truly performed on my
part, the chief was understood to--
Firstly.--Stick up for me in a general way, and not let me be bullied
or imposed upon by any one but himself, so far as he was able to
prevent it.
Secondly.--In case of me being plundered or maltreated by any powerful
marauder, it was the duty of my chief to come in hot haste, with all
his family, armed to the teeth, to my rescue--after all was over, and
when it was too late to be of any service. He was also bound on such
occasions to make a great noise, dance the war dance, and fire muskets
(I finding the powder), and to declare loudly what he would have done
had he only been in time. I, of course, on such occasions, for my own
dignity, and in consideration of the spirited conduct of my friends,
was bound to order two or three fat pigs to be killed, and lots of
potatoes to be served out to the "army;" who were always expected to be
starving, as a general rule. A distribution of tobacco, in the way of
largess, was also a necessity of the case.
Thirdly.--In case of my losing anything of consequence by theft--a
thing which, as a veracious pakeha, I am bound to say, seldom happened:
the natives in those days being, as I have already mentioned, a very
law observing people (of the law of _muru_), had, indeed, little
occasion to steal; the above-named law answering their purposes in a
general way much better, and helping them pretty certainly to any
little matter they coveted: yet, as there are exceptions to all rules,
theft would sometimes be committed--and then, as I was saying, it
became the bounden duty of my _rangatira_ to get the stolen article
back, if he was able, and keep it for himself for his trouble, unless I
gave him something of more value in lieu thereof.
Under the above regulations, things went on pleasantly enough: the
chief being restrained, by public opinion and the danger of the pakeha
running away, from pushing his prerogative to the utmost limit; and the
pakeha, on the other hand, making the commonalty pay for the indirect
taxation he was subjected to; so that in general, after ten or fifteen
years' residence, he would not be much poorer than when he arrived:
unless, indeed, some unlucky accident happened, such as pakehas were
liable to sometimes in the good old times.
Mentioning "public opinion" as a restraint on the chiefs'
acquisitiveness, I must explain that a chief possessing a pakeha was
much envied by his neighbours, who, in consequence, took every
opportunity of scandalizing him, and blaming him for any rough plucking
process he might subject the said pakeha to; and should he, by any
awkward handling of this sort, cause the pakeha at last to run for it,
the chief would never hear the end of it from his own family and
connections: pakehas being, in those glorious old times, considered to
be geese who laid golden eggs, and it was held to be the very extreme
of foolishness and bad policy either to kill them, or, by too rough
handling, to cause them to fly away.
On the other hand, should the pakeha fail in a culpable manner in the
performance of his duties--though he would not, as a rule, be subjected
to any stated punishment--he would soon begin to find a most
unaccountable train of accidents and all sorts of unpleasant
occurrences happening; enough, in the aggregate, to drive Job himself
out of his wits: and, moreover, he would _get a bad name_, which,
though he removed, would follow him from one end of the island to the
other, and effectually prevent him having the slightest chance of doing
any good,--that is, holding his own in the country; as the natives,
wherever he went, would consider him a person out of whom the most was
to be made at once, since he was not to be depended on as a source of
permanent revenue. I have known several industrious, active, and sober
pakehas who never could do any good, and whose lives, for a long series
of years, were a mere train of mishaps, till at last they were reduced
to extreme poverty; merely from having, in their first dealings with
the natives, got a bad name, in consequence of not having been able to
understand clearly the beauty of the set of regulations I have just
mentioned, and from an inability to make them work smoothly. The bad
name I have mentioned was short and expressive: wherever they went,
there would be sure to be some one who would introduce them to their
new acquaintances as "a pakeha _pakeke_,"--a hard pakeha; "a pakeha
_taehae_"--a miser; or, to sum up all, "a pakeha _kino_."
The chief who claimed me was a good specimen of the Maori _rangatira_.
He was a very old man, and had fought the French when Marion, the
French circumnavigator, was killed. He had killed a Frenchman himself,
and carried his thighs and legs many miles as a _bonne bouche_ for his
friends at home at the pa. This old gentleman was not head of his
tribe; but he was a man of good family, related to several high chiefs.
He was head of a strong family, or _hapu_, which mustered a
considerable number of fighting men; all his near relations. He had
been himself a most celebrated fighting man, and a war chief; and was
altogether a highly respectable person, and of great weight in the
councils of the tribe. I may say I was fortunate in having been
appropriated by this old patrician.
He gave me very little trouble; did not press his rights and privileges
too forcibly on my notice; and, in fact behaved in all respects towards
me in so liberal and friendly a manner, that before long I began to
have a very sincere regard for him, and he to take a sort of paternal
interest in me; this was both gratifying to observe, and also extremely
comical sometimes, when he, out of real anxiety to see me a perfectly
accomplished _rangatira_, would lecture on good manners, etiquette, and
the use of the spear. He was, indeed, a model of a _rangatira_, and
well worth being described.
He was a little man, with a high massive head, and remarkably high
square forehead, on which the tattooer had exhausted his art. Though,
as I have said, of a great age, he was still nimble and active: he had
evidently been one of those tough active men, who though small in
stature, are a match for any one. There was in my old friend's eyes a
sort of dull fiery appearance, which, when anything excited him, or
when he recounted some of those numerous battles, onslaughts,
massacres, or stormings, in which all the active part of his life had
been spent, actually seemed to blaze up and give forth real fire. His
breast was covered with spear wounds, and he also had two very severe
spear wounds on his head; but he boasted that no single man had ever
been able to touch him with the point of a spear. It was in grand
_melees_, where he would have sometimes six or eight antagonists, that
he had received these wounds. He was a great general, and I have heard
him criticise closely the order and conduct of every battle of
consequence which had been fought for fifty years before my arrival in
the country. On these occasions the old "martialist" would draw on the
sand the plan of the battle he was criticising and describing; and, in
the course of time I began to perceive that, before the introduction of
the musket, the art of war had been brought to great perfection by the
natives: when large numbers were engaged in a pitched battle, the order
of battle resembled, in a most striking manner, some of the most
approved orders of battle of the ancients. Since the introduction of
fire-arms the natives have entirely altered their tactics, and adopted
a system better adapted to the new weapon and the nature of the
country.
My old friend had a great hatred for the musket. He said that in
battles fought with the musket there were never so many men killed as
when, in his young days, men fought hand to hand with the spear: then a
good warrior would kill six, eight, ten, or even twenty men in a single
fight. For when once the enemy broke and commenced to run, the
combatants being so close together, a fast runner would knock a dozen
on the head in a short time; and the great aim of these fast-running
warriors, of whom my old friend had been one, was to chase straight on
and never stop, only striking one blow at one man, so as to cripple
him, in order that those behind should be sure to overtake and finish
him. It was not uncommon for one man, strong and swift of foot, when
the enemy were fairly routed, to stab with a light spear ten or a dozen
men, in such a way as to ensure their being overtaken and killed. On
one occasion of this kind my old tutor had the misfortune to stab a
running man in the back: he did it of course scientifically, so as to
stop his running; and as he passed him by he perceived it was his
wife's brother, who was finished immediately by the men close behind. I
should have said that the man was a brother of one of my friend's four
wives; which being the case, I dare say he had a sufficient number of
brothers-in-law to afford to kill one now and then.
A worse mishap, however, occurred to him on another occasion. He was
returning from a successful expedition from the south (in the course of
which, by-the-by, he and his men killed and cooked in Shortland-crescent,
several men of the enemy, and forced three others to jump over a cliff
which is, I think, now called Soldier's-point), when off the Mahurangi
a smoke was seen rising from amongst the trees near the beach. They at
once concluded that it came from the fires of people belonging to that
part of the country, and who they considered as game; they therefore
waited till night, concealing their canoes behind some rocks, and when
it became dark, landed; they then divided into two parties, took the
supposed enemy completely by surprise, and attacked, rushing upon them
from two opposite directions at once. My _rangatira_, dashing furiously
among them, and--as I can well suppose--those eyes of his flashing
fire, had the happiness of once again killing the first man, and being
authorized to shout "_Ki au te mataika!_" A few more blows, and the
parties recognize each other: they are friends!--men of the same tribe!
Who is the last _mataika_ slain by this famous warrior? Quick, bring a
flaming brand--here he lies dead! Ha! It is his father!
Now an ancient knight of romance, under similar awkward circumstances,
would probably have retired from public life, sought out some forest
cave, where he would have hung up his armour, let his beard grow,
flogged himself twice a day "regular," and lived on "pulse"--which I
suppose means pea-soup--for the rest of his life. But my old
_rangatira_ and his companions had not a morsel of that sort of romance
about them. The killing of my friend's father was looked upon as a very
clever exploit in itself; though a very unlucky one. So after having
scolded one another for some time--one party telling the other they
were served right for not keeping a better look out, and the other
answering that they should have been sure who they were going to attack
before making the onset--they all held a _tangi_ or lamentation for the
old warrior who had just received his _mittimus_; and then killing a
prisoner, whom they had brought in the canoes for fresh provisions,
they had a good feast; after which they returned all together to their
own country, taking the body of their lamented relative along with
them. This happened many years before I came to the country, and when
my _rangatira_ was one of the most famous fighting-men in his tribe.
This Maori _rangatira_ I am describing had passed his whole life, with
but little intermission, in scenes of battle, murder, and bloodthirsty
atrocities of the most terrific description; mixed with actions of the
most heroic courage, self-sacrifice, and chivalric daring, as leaves
one perfectly astounded to find them the deeds of one and the same
people: one day doing acts which, had they been performed in ancient
Greece, would have immortalized the actors, and the next committing
barbarities too horrible for relation, and almost incredible.
The effect of a life of this kind was observable plainly enough, in my
friend. He was utterly devoid of what weak mortals call "compassion."
He seemed to have no more feeling for the pain, tortures, or death of
others than a stone. Should one of his family be dying or wounded, he
merely felt it as the loss of one fighting man. As for the death of a
woman, or any non-combatant, he did not feel it at all; though the
person might have suffered horrid tortures: indeed I have seen him
scolding severely a fine young man, his near relative, when actually
expiring, for being such a fool as to blow himself up by accident, and
deprive his family of a fighting man. The last words the dying man
heard were these:--"It serves you right. There you are, looking very
like a burnt stick! It serves you right--a burnt stick! Serves you
right!" It really _was_ vexatious. A fine stout young fellow to be
wasted in that way.
As for fear, I saw one or two instances to prove he knew very little
about it: indeed, to be killed in battle seemed to him a natural death.
He was always grumbling that the young men thought of nothing but
trading; and whenever he proposed to them to take him where he might
have a final battle (_he riri wakamutunga_), where he might escape
dying of old age, they always kept saying, "Wait till we get more
muskets," or "more gunpowder," or more something or another: "as if men
could not be killed without muskets!" He was not cruel either; he was
only unfeeling. He had been guilty, it is true, in his time, of what we
should call terrific atrocities to his prisoners; which he calmly and
calculatingly perpetrated as _utu_, or retaliation for similar
barbarities committed by them or their tribe.
And here I must retract the word guilty, which I see I have written
inadvertently; for--according to the morals and principles of the
people of whom he was one, and of the time to which he belonged, and
the training he had received--so far from being guilty, he did a
praiseworthy, glorious, and public-spirited action when he opened the
jugular vein of a bound captive and sucked huge draughts of his blood.
To say the truth, he was a very nice old man, and I liked him very
much. It would not, however, be advisable to put him in a passion; not
much good would be likely to arise from it: as, indeed, I could show by
one or two very striking instances which came under my notice; though,
to say the truth, he was not easily put out of temper. He had one great
moral rule,--it was, indeed, his rule of life: he held that every man
had a right to do everything and anything he chose, provided he was
able and willing to stand the consequences; though he thought some men
fools for trying to do things which they could not carry out
pleasantly, and which ended in getting them baked.
I once hinted to him that, should every one reduce these principles to
practice, he himself might find it awkward; particularly as he had so
many mortal enemies. To which he replied, with a look which seemed to
pity my ignorance, that every one _did_ practise this rule to the best
of their abilities, but that some were not so able as others; and that
as for his enemies, he should take care they never surprised _him_: a
surprise being, indeed, the only thing he seemed to have any fear at
all of. In truth, he had occasion to look out sharp. He never was known
to sleep more than three or four nights in the same place, and often,
when there were ill omens, he would not sleep in a house at all, or two
nights following in one place, for a month together. I never saw him
without both spear and tomahawk, and ready to defend himself at a
second's notice: a state of preparation perfectly necessary, for though
in his own country and surrounded by his tribe, his death would have
been such a triumph for hundreds, not of distant enemies, but of people
within a day's journey, that none could tell at what moment some stout
young fellow in search of _utu_ and a "_ingoa toa_" (a warlike
reputation) might rush upon him, determined to have his head or leave
his own.
The old buck himself had, indeed, performed several exploits of this
nature; the last of which occurred just at the time I came into the
country, but before I had the advantage of his acquaintance. His tribe
were at war with some people at the distance of about a day's journey.
One of their villages was on the border of a dense forest. My
_rangatira_, then a very old man, started off alone, and without saying
a word to any one, took his way through the forest, which extended the
whole way between his village and the enemy, crept like a lizard into
the enemy's village, and then, shouting his war cry, dashed amongst a
number of people he saw sitting together on the ground, and who little
expected such a salute. In a minute he had run three men and one woman
through the body, received five dangerous spear-wounds himself, and
escaped to the forest; and finally he got safe home to his own country
and people. Truly my old _rangatira_ was a man of a thousand,--a model
_rangatira_. This exploit, if possible, added to his reputation, and
every one said his _mana_ would never decline. The enemy had been panic
stricken, thinking a whole tribe were upon them, and fled like a flock
of sheep: except the three men who were killed. They all attacked my
old chief at once, and were all disposed of in less than a minute,
after, as I have said, giving him five desperate wounds. The woman was
just "stuck," as a matter of course, as she came in his way.
The natives are unanimous in affirming that they were much more
numerous in former times than they are now, and I am convinced that
such was the case, for the following reasons. The old hill forts are
many of them so large that an amount of labour must have been expended
in trenching, terracing, and fencing them--and all without iron tools,
which increased the difficulty a hundred-fold--that must have required
a vastly greater population to accomplish than can be now found in the
surrounding districts. These forts were also of such an extent that,
taking into consideration the system of attack and defence used
necessarily in those times, they would have been utterly untenable
unless held by at least ten times the number of men the whole
surrounding districts, for two or three days' journey, can produce. And
yet, when we remember that in those times of constant war--being the
two centuries preceding the arrival of the Europeans--the natives
always, as a rule, slept in these hill forts with closed gates, bridges
over trenches removed, and ladders of terraces drawn up, we must come
to the conclusion that the inhabitants of the fort, though so numerous,
were merely the population of the country in the close vicinity.
Now from the top of one of these pointed, trenched, and terraced hills,
I have counted twenty others, all of equally large dimensions, and all
within a distance, in every direction, of fifteen to twenty miles; and
native tradition affirms that each of these hills was the stronghold of
a separate _hapu_ or clan, bearing its distinctive name. There is also
the most unmistakable evidence that vast tracts of country, which have
lain wild time out of mind, were once fully cultivated. The ditches for
draining the land are still traceable, and large pits are to be seen in
hundreds, on the tops of the dry hills, all over the northern part of
the North Island, in which the _kumera_ were once stored; and these
pits are, in the greatest number, found in the centre of great open
tracts of uncultivated country, where a rat in the present day would
hardly find subsistence. The old drains, and the peculiar growth of the
timber, mark clearly the extent of these ancient cultivations. It is
also very observable that large tracts of very inferior land have been
in cultivation; which would lead to the inference that either the
population was pretty nearly proportioned to the extent of available
land, or that the tracts of inferior land were cultivated merely
because they were not too far removed from the fort: for the shape of
the hill, and its capability of defence and facility of fortification,
was of more consequence than the fertility of the surrounding country.
These _kumera_ pits, being dug generally in the stiff clay on the hill
tops, have, in most cases, retained their shape perfectly; and many
seem as fresh and new as if they had been dug but a few years. They are
oblong in shape, with the sides regularly sloped. Many collections of
these provision stores have outlived Maori tradition, and the natives
can only conjecture to whom they belonged. Out of the centre of one of
them which I have seen, there is now growing a kauri tree one hundred
and twenty feet high, and out of another a large totara. The outline of
these pits is as perfect as the day they were dug, and the sides have
not fallen in in the slightest degree; from which perhaps they have
been preserved by the absence of frost, as well as by a beautiful
coating of moss, by which they are everywhere covered. The pit in which
the kauri grew, had been partially filled up by the scaling off of the
bark of the tree; which, falling off in patches, as it is constantly
doing, had raised a mound of decaying bark round the root of the tree.
Another evidence of a very large number of people having once inhabited
these hill forts is the number of houses they contained. Every native
house, it appears, in former times, as in the present, had a fire-place
composed of four flat stones or flags sunk on their edges into the
ground, so as to form an oblong case or trunk, in which at night a fire
to heat the house was made. Now, in two of the largest hill forts I
have examined (though for ages no vestige of a house had been seen)
there remained the fire-places--the four stones projecting like an
oblong box slightly over the ground; and their position and number
denoted clearly that, large as the circumference of the huge volcanic
hill was which formed the fortress, the number of families inhabiting
it necessitated the strictest economy of room. The houses had been
arranged in streets, or double rows, with a path between them; except
in places where there had been only room on a terrace for a single row.
The distances between the fire-places proved that the houses in the
rows must have been as close together as it was possible to build them;
and every spot, from the foot to the hill-top, not required and
specially planned for defensive purposes, had been built on in this
regular manner. Even the small flat top, sixty yards long by forty
wide,--the citadel,--on which the greatest care and labour had been
bestowed to render it difficult of access, had been as full of houses
as it could hold; leaving only a small space all round the precipitous
bank for the defenders to stand on.
These little fire-places, and the scarped and terraced conical hills,
are the only mark the Maori of ancient times have left of their
existence. And I have reasons for believing that this country has been
inhabited from a more remote period by far than is generally supposed.
These reasons I found upon the dialect of the Maori language spoken by
the Maori of New Zealand, as well as on many other circumstances.
We may easily imagine that a hill of this kind, covered from bottom to
top with houses thatched and built of reeds, rushes, and raupo, would
be a mere mass of combustible matter; and such indeed was the case.
When an enemy attacked one of these places, a common practice was to
shower into the place, from slings, red-hot stones, which, sinking into
the dry thatch of the houses, would cause a general conflagration.
Should this once occur the place was sure to be taken. This mode of
attack was consequently much feared; all hands not engaged at the outer
defences, and all women and non-combatants, being employed guarding
against this danger, by pouring water out of calabashes on every smoke
that appeared. The natives also practised both mining and escalade in
attacking a hill fort.
The natives attribute their decrease in numbers, before the arrival of
the Europeans, to war and sickness; disease possibly arising from the
destruction of food and the forced neglect of cultivation caused by the
constant and furious wars which devastated the country for a long
period before the arrival of the Europeans: and to such an extent that
the natives at last believed a constant state of warfare to be the
natural condition of life, and their sentiments, feelings, and maxims
became gradually formed on this belief. Nothing was so valuable or
respectable as strength and courage, and to acquire property by war and
plunder was more honourable and also more desirable than by labour.
Cannibalism was glorious. In a word, the island was a pandemonium.
A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man;
On his own wretched kind he ruthless prey'd.
The strongest then the weakest overran,
In every country mighty robbers sway'd,
And guile and ruffian force was all their trade.
Since the arrival of the Europeans the decrease of the natives has also
been rapid. In that part of the country where I have had means of
accurate observation, they have decreased in number since my arrival
rather more than one-third. I have, however, observed that this
decrease has for the last ten years been very considerably checked;
though I do not believe this improvement is general through the
country, or even permanent where I have observed it.
The first grand cause of the decrease of the natives since the arrival
of the Europeans is the musket. The nature of the ancient Maori weapons
prompted them to seek out vantage ground, and to take up positions on
precipitous hill-tops, and make those high, dry, airy situations their
regular fixed residences. Their ordinary course of life, when not
engaged in warfare, was regular, and not necessarily unhealthy; their
labour, though constant in one shape or other, and compelled by
necessity, was not too heavy. In the morning, but not early, they
descended from the hill pa to the cultivations in the low ground; they
went in a body, armed like men going to battle, the spear or club in
one hand, and the agricultural instrument in the other. The women
followed. Long before night (it was counted unlucky to work till dark)
they returned to the hill in a reversed order; the women, slaves, and
lads, bearing fuel and water for the night, in front: these also bore
probably heavy loads of _kumera_ or other provisions. In the time of
year when the crops, being planted and growing, did not call for their
attention, the whole tribe would remove to some fortified hill, at the
side of some river, or on the coast, where they would pass months in
fishing and making nets, clubs, spears, and implements of various
descriptions; the women, in all spare time, making mats for clothing,
or baskets to carry the crop of _kumera_ in, when fit to dig. There was
very little idleness; and to be called "lazy" was a great reproach. It
is to be observed that for several months the crops could be left thus
unguarded with perfect safety, for the Maori, as a general rule, never
destroyed growing crops, or attacked their owners in a regular manner
until the crops were nearly at full perfection, so that they might
afford subsistence to the invaders; and consequently the end of the
summer all over the country was a time of universal preparation for
battle, either offensive or defensive, the crops then being near
maturity.
Now when the natives became generally armed with the musket they at
once abandoned the hills, and, to save themselves the great labour and
inconvenience occasioned by the necessity of continually carrying
provisions, fuel, and water to these precipitous hill-castles--which
would be also, as a matter of necessity, at some inconvenient distance
from at least some part of the extensive cultivations--descended to the
low lands, and there, in the centre of the cultivations, erected a new
kind of fortification adapted to the capabilities of the new weapon.
_This_ was their destruction. For they built their oven-like houses in
mere swamps, where the water, even in summer, sprang with the pressure
of the foot, and where in winter the houses were often completely
flooded. There, lying on the spongy soil, on beds of rushes which
rotted under them--in little low dens of houses, or kennels, heated
like ovens at night and dripping with damp in the day--full of noxious
exhalations from the damp soil, and impossible to ventilate--they were
cut off by disease in a manner absolutely frightful. No advice would
they take: they could not _see_ the enemy which killed them, and
therefore could not believe the Europeans who pointed out the cause of
their destruction.
This change of residence was universal, and everywhere followed by the
same consequences, more or less marked: the strongest men were cut off
and but few children were reared. And even now, after the dreadful
experience they have had, and all the continual remonstrances of their
pakeha friends, they take but very little more precaution in choosing
sites for their houses than at first; and when a native village or a
native house happens to be in a dry healthy situation, it is often more
the effect of accident than design.
Twenty years ago a _hapu_, in number just forty persons, removed their
_kainga_ from a dry healthy position to the edge of a _raupo_ swamp. I
happened to be at the place a short time after the removal, and with me
there was a medical gentleman who was travelling through the country.
In creeping into one of the houses (the chief's) through the low door,
I was obliged to put both my hands to the ground; they both sank into
the swampy soil, making holes which immediately filled with water. The
chief and his family were lying on the ground on rushes, and a fire was
burning, which made the little den, not in the highest place more than
five feet high, feel like an oven. I called the attention of my friend
to the state of this place called a "house." He merely said, "_men_
cannot live here." Eight years from that day the whole _hapu_ were
extinct; but, as I remember, two persons were shot for bewitching them
and causing their deaths.
Many other causes combined at the same time to work the destruction of
the natives. Besides the change of residence from the high and healthy
hill forts to the low grounds, there were the hardship, over-labour,
exposure, and half-starvation, to which they submitted themselves--firstly,
to procure these very muskets which enabled them to make the fatal
change of residence and afterwards to procure the highly and justly
valued iron implements of the Europeans. When we reflect that a ton of
cleaned flax was the price paid for two muskets, and at an earlier date
for one musket, we can see at once the amount of exertion necessary to
obtain it. But supposing a man to get a musket for half a ton of flax,
another half-ton would be required for ammunition; and in consequence,
as every man in a native _hapu_ of, say a hundred men, was absolutely
forced on pain of death to procure a musket and ammunition at any cost,
and at the earliest possible moment (for, if they did not procure them,
extermination was their doom by the hands of those of their country-men
who had), the effect was that this small _hapu_, or clan, had to
manufacture, spurred by the penalty of death, in the shortest possible
time, one hundred tons of flax, scraped by hand with a shell, bit by
bit, morsel by morsel, half-a-quarter of an ounce at a time.
Now as the natives, when undisturbed and labouring regularly at their
cultivations, were never far removed from necessity or scarcity of
food, we may easily imagine the distress and hardship caused by this
enormous imposition of extra labour. They were obliged to neglect their
crops in a very serious degree, and for many months in the year were in
a half-starving condition; working hard all the time in the flax
swamps. The insufficient food, over-exertion, and unwholesome locality,
killed them fast. As for the young children, they almost all died; and
this state of things continued for many years: for it was long after
being supplied with arms and ammunition before the natives could
purchase, by similar exertion, the various agricultural implements, and
other iron tools so necessary to them; and it must always be
remembered, if we wish to understand the difficulties and over-labour
the natives were subjected to, that while undergoing this immense extra
toil, they were at the same time obliged to maintain themselves by
cultivating the ground with sharpened sticks, not being able to afford
to purchase iron implements in any useful quantity, till first the
great, pressing, paramount want of muskets and gunpowder had been
supplied. Thus continual excitement, over-work, and insufficient food,
exposure, and unhealthy places of residence, together with a general
breaking up of old habits of life, thinned their numbers: European
diseases also assisted, but not to any very serious extent.
In the part of the country in which I have had means of observing with
exactitude, the natives have decreased in numbers over one-third since
I first saw them. That this rapid decrease has been checked in some
districts, I am sure, and the cause is not a mystery. The influx of
Europeans has caused a competition in trading, which enables them to
get the highest value for the produce of their labour, and at the same
time has opened to them a hundred new lines of industry, and afforded
them other opportunities of becoming possessed of property. They have
not at all improved these advantages as they might have done; but are,
nevertheless, as it were in spite of themselves, on the whole,
richer--_i.e._, better clothed, fed, and in some degree lodged, than in
past years; and I see the plough now running where I once saw the rude
pointed stick poking the ground. I do not, however, believe that this
improvement exists in more than one or two districts in any remarkable
degree, nor do I think it will be permanent where it does exist;
insomuch as I have said that the improvement is not the result of
providence, economy, or industry, but of a train of temporary
circumstances favourable to the natives: and which, if unimproved, as
they most probably will be, will end in no permanent good result.